[How To] Root Gionee Elife E6 and Install ClockworkMod recovery

Gionee, the rising smartphone vendor in India which originates from China launches good smartphones now and then (E6, E7 and S5.5) but unfortunately has not been able to support them all. In 2013, their flagship smartphone Gionee Elife E6 was one of the first smartphone with 1080p Full HD display in that price segment with an OGS body and top specifications which initiated its streak of appreciation and healthy investment in the Indian market.

Running through the specifications of the handset, Gionee Elife E6 features a Quad-core 1.2GHz MediaTek processor with 2GB of RAM and a 5-inch full HD display which is very crisp and our favorite thing on the smartphone. The smartphone comes with a 13MP rear camera with BSI sensor while the front features a 5MP shooter. It comes with 32GB of on-board storage which is ample enough to satisfy one’s basic needs including gaming, multimedia, photography and applications. It came with early stages of Amigo which was supported by couple of software updates but still not taking it above 4.2.2 JellyBean.

The first thing we looked for when we picked the phone, was a dedicated forum to hack and crack into the phone but unfortunately our search fell short. Eventually, like most devices there were rooting guides slowly and gradually filling up the Internet for this handset as well. We thought to root our device after almost an year and especially when the company itself is not interested in providing the software support, moving E6 to its hall of fame board. Rooting used to be a complex and scary process running few commands via adb and hoping that the device is not bricked. More recently, there were apps rolled out by the developers for the most popular Windows platform and now there are android apps itself which can root Gionee Elife E6 without using any external agents. Follow the basic steps as mentioned below to unleash your device’s capability.

Before proceeding further, we would like to state this disclaimer that Techsplurge is not responsible for any damage that happens to your device while rooting your device. Root at your own risk.

There is this application called as framaroot which you can download from this link. This will be an apk file which needs unknown software security permissions if you have never installed an app with an apk file before.

After installing the application, you shall see a dropdown on the screen. Select ‘Install SuperSU’ option and click ‘Boromir’.

Once the above mentioned steps are done, you will be greeted with a dialog box saying your device has been rooted. Now reboot your device.

Check for the root access by downloading ‘Root Checker’ app from the Play Store. Hooray! your device has now been successfully rooted.

Now what? Install the custom recovery, in our case the ClockworkMod Recovery.

A brief introduction to what’s a custom recovery. Custom recoveries like ClockworkMod enables us to do more with our device. They are basically the BIOS for our handset and we flash them only after rooting our device because we need administrator access to do so. To install a custom recovery on a rooted Gionee Elife E6, you need two things – the recovery image file and the tool which could flash this image file. MediaTek powered smartphones have a tool called as Mobile Uncle tool which is available on the Google Play Store. Note that this application only works on rooted smartphones so just in case if you haven’t rooted your device, follow the steps mentioned above and come back here.

Install Mobile Uncle tools, and download the recovery image file from this link.

There will a file named Recovery.img make sure the name is recovery.img (all in lower case) and store this image on /sdcard directory on your device.

Now reboot your device and its done. You have CWM installed which can now be used to take NANDROID backup and flash different ROMS if available.

Recently, we found a MIUI version which is supported by the Gionee Elife E6 and we tried flashing it on our device which was successfully completed. We shall be posting a guide next for the same next which will be like an extension to this. So make sure you are ready with a rooted device and custom recovery installed.